A gas leak at a Staffordshire theme park led to a full-scale decontamination exercise by emergency services yesterday.
An ozone leak was found by an employee while he inspected the pump room at Cariba Creek, part of the Splash Landings waterpark at Alton Towers, between 7am and 8am.
Although he shut down the equipment and alerted technicians, a call to on-site paramedics resulted in Staffordshire Ambulance Service launching a chemical incident training exercise.
Prolonged exposure to ozone gas can be extremely harmful and the worker was taken to hospital as a precaution. No visitors were in the pool when the gas leak was discovered.
A paramedic team, decontamination tent and major incident unit were sent to the theme park. Staffordshire Fire Service was also called to the scene as part of the exercise.
Bob Lee, of Staffordshire Ambulance Service, said: "We don't get many calls to chemical incidents and although this was only a small leak, we thought it was a good opportunity to do some training."
The 216-bedroom Splash Landings hotel and waterpark opened in June last year.
